ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8822-7167

Abstract

Investigating the impact of land cover change in hydrological modelling is essential for water resources management. This paper investigates the importance of landcover change in the development of a physically-based hydrological model called SWAT. The study area considered is the Dodder River basin located in southern Dublin, Ireland. Runoff at the basin outlet was simulated using SWAT for 1993–2019 using five landcover maps obtained for 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. Results indicate that, in general, the SWAT model-simulated runoff for a chosen time-period are closer to the real-world observations when the landcover data used for simulation was collated as close to the time-period for which the simulations were performed. For 23 (20) years (from 27 years period) the monthly mean (maximum) runoff for the Dodder River generated by the SWAT model had the least error when the nearby landcover data were used. This study indicates the necessity of considering dynamic and time-varying landcover data during the development of hydrological modelling for runoff simulation. Furthermore, two composite quantile functions were generated by using a kappa distribution for monthly mean runoff and GEV distribution for monthly maximum runoff, based on model simulations obtained using different landcover data corresponding to different time-period. Modelling landcover change patterns and development of projected landcover in the future for river basins in Ireland needs to be integrated with SWAT to simulate future runoff.

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering

DOI

10.3390/su14010534

Full Publication Date

4-1-2022

Publication Details

Sustainability

Publisher

MDPI

Funder Name 1

H2020 Programme

Award Number 1

776848

Resource Type

journal article

Resource Version

http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85

Access Rights

open access

Open Access Route

Gold Open Access

License Condition

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Alternative Identifier

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/534

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